Sales, marketing and tech knowledge for wholesale brands and salespeople.

Sugar Paper is an L.A.-based luxury letterpress stationery company with a focus on high quality materials and beautiful, sophisticated design. After getting started with custom wedding invitations, baby announcements, and other made-to-order products, Sugar Paper began moving into the world of wholesale sales in 2012. Since then, the business has grown significantly––Sugar Paper now sells to boutiques and independent retailers across the United States and internationally.

For Wholesale Key Accounts manager Emily Benedetto, a digital sales app has always been a part of how Sugar Paper has done business. While the company first started out using paper order forms, they were early adopters of Handshake’s mobile sales app and have been using it since Benedetto started at the company.

Here’s how Sugar Paper uses Handshake’s sales app to their advantage:

1. At Trade Shows

Sugar Paper adopted order management software when they began their wholesale business. According to Benedetto, “We’ve been using Handshake since we debuted our wholesale line at the National Stationery Show in 2012.”

Today at trade shows, the company is never without their iPads. The team is able to scroll through their entire product line on their devices, quickly draft and confirm orders digitally, send confirmation emails, and save their buyers’ time in the process. “I think that people in the booth are always impressed by the technology. More and more companies are taking down orders on iPads,” says Benedetto.

Sugar Paper has also used the sales app to track sales at trade shows. For each show, they can separate repeat customers from new customers, run sales reports, and send them back to headquarters for review.

This has helped the company meet some of the biggest challenges in their industry, like scaling the production of their handmade products, shipping more quickly, and making sure they have enough inventory to meet demand. “We do a new line twice a year, so we always have to figure out how much product to make for those lines. We also want to have accurate projections for big holidays,” says Benedetto.

So at trade shows, when the booth staff sends reports back to L.A., the team in the back office can see what the top sellers are at the show and begin the process of building up that inventory. They can also begin fulfilling orders immediately––while the show is still going on.

When the show ends, the dust clears, and the team makes it back to their home office, all of the orders they wrote in the last few days are already being processed. The company also gets many orders with future ship dates, so they can do projections for upcoming seasons.

2. In the Back Office

In addition to using the software at trade shows, Sugar Paper also uses it every day in their back office. When the customer service team receives orders over the phone, they enter it into Handshake on their iPads.

“Every single one of our orders goes through Handshake,” says Benedetto. “With the high resolution images, it’s so easy to write an order on the interface. We’re a letterpress printer, so we need that level of detail.”

The company also has their own retail store. In the past, when that store needed more inventory, they used to send emails to order more product. Now, they also use Handshake to communicate with headquarters. “The best thing about it is the constant connection and ease of use,” says Benedetto.

Recently, Sugar Paper has also integrated Handshake with their back office system, QuickBooks. Orders now sync directly from Handshake to QuickBooks, making the fulfillment process even more streamlined.

3. In the Field

Sugar Paper relies on independent sales representatives and independent rep groups for their field sales. While most of these reps have their own systems for submitting orders, others simply send emails to the back office. “There is a lot of confusion and back-and-forth communication when orders come in as emails or faxes,” says Benedetto. She is now hoping to improve the process with Handshake.

“We’ve already on-boarded two rep groups with Handshake, so that they can submit orders remotely into our system. I can’t imagine going back. It’s so easy, professional, and convenient, and everything works efficiently.”

Want to know more about how order management software can help streamline sales, order fulfillment, and operations for your business? Let us know in the comments or reach out to info@handshake.com.